Two short films below reveal the social context behind the novel Child Witch.The first is a news documentary; my wife Angela Nicoara and I made it in Congo with support from USAID, Search for Common GroundandInternews. We showed it at a seminar for sixty Congolese journalists, to encourage them to report more objectively on 'child witches'. Too often, Kinshasa's media prioritizes the fears of religious zealots, rather than the suffering of children who are intimidated, abused, and even murdered during 'exorcisms'. My book was inspired by, and is dedicated to, the injured boy at the start of the first film.

Our second short film, below, is a music video featuring a Kinshasa pop band and local actors. In it, a young boy is accused of sorcery and kicked out of his home. We made this film to help raise public awareness and Congo’s state TV broadcasted it in 2002. The featured musicians had been accused of sorcery as children and spent many years living rough; some were the first residents of the ‘halfway house’ for Kinshasa street children, run by ORPER. As adults, they formed L'Orchestre La Chytoure and won prizes. Their song 'Enfant dit Sorcier ' explains how it feels to be kicked out of home as a 'child witch', and left to survive. Their tenacity and talent speaks for itself, n'est-ce pas?